While I was home for spring break, I had the rare opportunity to see Tyler on and off the bus each day.  I noticed every day that he slid into the front seat by himself and emerged from the same seat when he came home again.

“Tyler, why don’t you sit with Toby?” I asked him one of those days after he waved to Mr. Rich, his bus driver, hopped off the steps and began trudging up the driveway.

“Cause Toby sits in the first grade row,” he explained.  “I have to sit in the kindergarten row.”

“But you don’t have to sit alone if you don’t want to,” I persisted.  “If you want to sit with Toby in the first grade row, I’m sure Mr. Rich wouldn’t mind.”

“That’s OK,” he said as we entered the house, “I like sitting by myself.  When I’m in first grade, I’ll sit in the first grade row.  When I’m in second grade, I’ll sit in the second grade row.  And when I’m in the twelfth grade, I’ll sit in the twelfth grade row!”

These days whenever my boy says something cute, I stifle my laughter, because now he’s old enough to think I’m laughing at him.

“Well, when you’re in the twelfth grade, you’ll be seventeen years old,” I explained.  “That means you’ll be able to drive yourself to school.  You might even have your own car!”

He gasped and dropped his backpack to the floor.

“Maybe I’ll even have my own entire BUS!” he exclaimed.

Ladies of Simsbury High School, class of 2023, watch out.  The hot guy in the Blue Bird is coming your way.

After the Easter morning basket-ravaging was over, I headed upstairs to pick out the kids’ Easter Sunday best.  Just when I opened Eva’s dresser drawer, two sleepy cats’ heads poked out and blinked at me.

Most mothers would probably shoo the cats away, appalled at the thought of cat hair all over their kids’ clean clothes.  I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

When I ran downstairs, the first kid I bumped into was Tyler.  “Go upstairs and look in Eva’s dresser drawer,” I instructed him.  “You’re going to love this!”

His eyes grew wide before he bolted toward the stairs, leaving a trail of skid marks across a wall-to-wall carpet of green grass filler.  But when he returned, he looked like someone just pissed on the grand finale to his fireworks display.

“Didn’t you see?” I asked.

“No,” he said.  “All I saw were the cats.”

“But that’s what you were supposed to see,” I said, confused as ever.  Two cats snuggled up in a dresser drawer…what could be better than that?

To make a long story short, he was hoping an Indiana Jones Xbox video game would be waiting for him in that dresser drawer.  The Easter Bunny didn’t come through for him this year.  It seems maintaining the salary of a full-time nanny hit even the bottom of the Easter Bunny’s pockets, and as Ashley herself wouldn’t fit in any of the baskets, they were looking pretty scanty.

To take his mind off the disappointment, I handed him his grandparents’ Easter cards, sent with love from their winter homes in Florida.  In each card were Easter blessings, tales of the Resurrection and a five dollar bill.

“It’s a dollar,” Tyler shrugged after emptying his envelope.

“Actually, it’s five dollars,” I corrected.  “See the number ‘5’?  That means this one bill is worth five hundred pennies.”

His mouth dropped like every slot machine in a casino tipped over and purged a mountain range of gold coins right there across the floor.

“Why, this is enough to feed a village,” he cried.  “We can take this money and provide homes for the homeless.  Toys for the less privileged.  We can sponsor a child all the way through college!”

OK, he didn’t really say that.  But based on the posts from proud parents I’ve read on Facebook over the years, this is the sort of thing kids say.  Right?

What he really said was, “FIVE HUNDRED PENNIES!  That means I can buy FIVE HUNDRED Indiana Jones video games!”

The thing is, despite his shameless greed on a holy day, after seeing that face full of anticipation melt into disappointment, I couldn’t help but to wish that five dollars would buy him exactly that.  At least, more than a Big Mac and Coke.

Having to explain the birds and the bees to my kids some day will be no problem.  Having to explain inflation is going to be a whole ‘nother story.

Tonight’s dilemma: I just brushed my teeth. Do I really need to chew the end of this carrot to make it look authentic?

Then it occurred to me—I successfully convinced all three children that a human-sized rabbit was going to steal into their bedrooms and fill their baskets with chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs. Do I really need to worry about authenticity?

In spite of it all, the kids will wake up tomorrow to three stuffed baskets and a carrot stump with teeth marks, while I secretly hope they’re no more clever than I give them credit for.

At least, that’s my hope. But then I remember Tyler glaring at the Easter Bunny during today’s egg hunt, scoffing, “That’s no Easter Bunny. That’s just a guy in a costume.”

With any luck, forensic odontologists don’t make house calls on Easter.

A conversation between me and Tyler:

“Hey, Mom! What did one duck say to the other?”

“I don’t know! What did one duck say to the other?”

“You quack me up!”

“Hey! That’s pretty cute!”

(With barely a moment between…)

“Mom!  What did one duck say to the other?”

“Again?  What this time?”

“You quack me up!”

“Heh heh heh.  Seems I’ve heard that one before.  Still cute.”

“What did one duck say to the other?”

“Dare I ask?”

“You quack me up!”

“Tyler, the thing about jokes is, they’re really only funny the first time you hear them. After that, they get old.  Can you think of any new ones?”

(After a thoughtful moment…)

“Hey, Mom!  What did one penguin say to the other?”

“What?”

“You quack me up!”

“But penguins don’t quack.  So now it just doesn’t make any sense.”

“But…get it? The penguins were pretending to be ducks!”

Here’s to the next generation of God-awful jokes.